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Hannah Glasse
The First Domestic Goddess...
 

Long before Elizabeth David added garlic to our menus and in the days when Isabella Beeton was still a little Miss, one recipe book transformed the dinning habits of Britain. So how is it that no one knows of Hannah Glasse? The first domestic goddess, queen of the dinner party and the most important cookery writer to hail from Hexham.

 

Her mother had once tricked Isaac into signing over control of his estate. So, upon her fathers death Hannah did not initially receive the £30 annual payment as set out in his will.

Hannah Glasse was born in 1708, London, the illegitimate daughter of Isaac Allgood and Hannah Reynolds. The Allgood family were respected and prosperous members of Northumberland society, and Isaac’s daughter Hannah is known to have been brought up in the families hometown of Hexham. Hannah and her family had a colourful history. Her farther was as a heavy drinker, often described as being in a ‘drunken stupor’ and Hannah regarded her mother as a ‘wicked wretch’.

 

It took the intervention of her half brother Lancelot Allgood, a powerful political figure and trained solicitor, before the issue was resolved in 1740. In 1732 she moved from Hexham to London. Much later in 1746 Hannah wrote to an aunt in Hexham explaining that she had begun working on a book entitled The Art of Cookery. This was her third economic venture the previous two, selling a medicinal elixir and weaving cloth, having failed. Eventually published by subscription in 1747, the first print run of 202 was sold to eager readers though Mrs. Ashburn’s China Shop, in London. The finished book was entitled, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, and gave plain and easy instructions for low-cost fine dining and swiftly reformed the cuisine of the professional classes. It also transformed Hannah’s financial situation. However, the book was first issued anonymously although she later register the title in 1746, at the Stationer’s Hall, listing the book as intendeding to assist the lower classes in cooking for their employers. The fact that authorship of the first edition was anonymous, discribed as being 'by a lady', led to the claim that it had been written by one John Hill. In ’Boswell’s Life of Johnson’ a dinner party is recounted at which the books publisher Dilly suggests Hill was the true author. Johnson was not convinced, but the myth proceeded until Hannah Glasse’s identity was finally confirmed by researchers in 1938. Hannah had 11 children, although only 5 survived early childhood. She ensured that each received an excellent education. Her two sons attended Eton while her daughters were tutored privately at home in Latin, French, writing and household accounts. Hannah found fame and fortune with her cookery book and was described as 'mother of the dinner party', she was also the insperation behind the phrase ‘first catch your hare'. Hannah Glasse died in 1770.